If you work at a shopping toolbar or shopping browser add-on, and are looking to increase your distribution, check out the website for the company I co-founded, W3i (http://www.W3i.com). We have distributed tens of millions of shopping toolbars and shopping browser add-ons on behalf of trusted third parties.

Cheers
Pete

As the CEO of Vendio, the company that created the Dealio Toolbar, I read your blog this morning with great interest.

I agree with the reasons you offered regarding why “on the surface” shopping toolbars make sense. In addition to the points you raised, there are a couple other key factors that make a shopping toolbar, or general search toolbar for that matter, more convenient, efficient, and user friendly than visiting a website.

1. Toolbars save you time. Rather than having to type in a new URL or click on a bookmark/favorite to visit a website, you can simply type your query right in the search box in the toolbar.
2. Shopping toolbars take the time and effort out of comparison shopping. No one likes to overpay for anything, but different shoppers have different buying habits. Some will spend hours hunting the best deal, while others are quick to pay for convenience. Many online shoppers are willing to spend time searching for deals on digital cameras and other big ticket items, but are hesitant to go through the time consuming process of visiting several comparison shopping sites to save money on less expensive items. Shopping toolbars help online buyers save money on all types of items without having to take the time to hunt around for the best price.

Shopping toolbars make sense, as do search toolbars. Much like you, I am a big fan of the Google Toolbar and SideStep. What sets them apart in my opinion is the successful execution of the concept. Not all Shopping toolbars are created equal, and some are far less intrusive than others. I trust that you found Dealio to be the least intrusive of the shopping toolbars you evaluated. Dealio takes up much less real estate than Active Shopper and triggers less frequently. Unlike the other shopping toolbars, Dealio only triggers on product pages, not search queries. When it does trigger, the alert is easy to ignore as the small button on the toolbar simply flashes orange a few times. There are other key differences worth noting. Unlike other shopping toolbars, the Dealio Toolbar is only 31 pixels high. Unlike NexTag, it does not cover or hide any of the content on the page the user is visiting. We went through great lengths during our user testing to ensure that were perceived as helpful and not intrusive by users.

I share your belief that in the same manner that so many of the adware and spyware companies have made consumers sensitive to and even wary of downloadable applications, these more intrusive shopping toolbars are creating a higher adoption hurdle for truly consumer friendly applications like Dealio to gain adoption. However, they also make it much easier for Dealio to stand out from the crowd.

The Dealio Toolbar has been downloaded thousands of times and the consumer reaction to the form factor and interface has been extremely positive. Having said that, it is a Beta product and there is definitely room for improvement. We are focused on expanding its comprehensiveness and improving the relevancy of the query engine. When Dealio is formally launched in a few weeks, it will offer results from thousands more merchants. Over the coming months, users will experience better search relevancy and even greater category and merchant expansion.

In my opinion, the consumer benefit of shopping toolbars will outweigh potential trust issues. Vendio is an established and trusted brand that helps tens of thousands of merchants sell over $500 million of merchandise each year. That trust will extend to the Dealio brand over time as well. Much in the same way that a significant and growing number of search queries are happening through Google’s toolbar, a significant portion of shopping queries will happen from shopping toolbars. But some are definitely better than others and the key, as you point out, is to provide consumer value without being obtrusive or annoying.

Thnx for reading.
-b

As a marketer I also use the alexa toolbar. My question is why doesn’t Amazon (owner of Alexa) add a button to the toolbar for price comparison? I know this isn’t amazon’s core focus, but I think the idea of bundling the comparison shopping feature with an existing reputable toolbar makes more sense than building a user base from the ground up.

I do recognize that there are potential problems since the “reputable” toolbars have a vested interest in not helping the comparison shopping sites, but I still think it’s something they should consider…

If I were NexTag or Shopping.com – which I’m not – I would produce a version of the toolbar that’s sans toolbar – as unobtrusive as possible without being ignorable. Perhaps a single icon down in the status bar that indicates the presence (and number) of different results? Maybe a Greasemonkey-script-like function (except for IE) that would add NexTag result listings to the actual SERPs when someone was searching for a product? Google’s increasing adding additional links at the top of the search results pages – dictionary definitions, Froogle listings, news items, etc. – so users are already used to content appearing there.

Point being – I think there’s still plenty of experimentation to be done with downloadable applications and browser addons. Once one’s made sufficiently unannoying, then the challenge is to get someone to download them. My suggestion – tie it to user registration and then randomly give away a small prize or two to a user once daily as bait.

Shopping toolbars are only good for shopping– If you want to shop and already know about Nextag and Shopping.com, its much easier to go to their website than have to deal with a shopping toolbar that takes up real estate on your desktop 24/7. You don’t need the persistent presence.